“Night is a tent without a central pole or pegs or supports. It opens up horizons and connects earth with sky from whose remote holes a faint light twinkles, hardly illuminating itself. The larger hole, in whose orbit trail smaller ones, has disappeared or perhaps closed up tonight. Some holes are better kept open than patched up, since the patching gives the illusion that the hole is restored to its normal state, only to be revealed still torn someday. Thus the mender realizes that he has been deceiving himself and others as well. It is said “cure your wound before it gets larger.” No, let it get larger and larger until it consumes the whole body, and a new one will be born.”

I never heard of Moorish revival architecture until I saw the Bloomingdale’s home store in Chicago. It is housed in a restored Masonic temple built by architects Huehl and Schmidt in 1912 for the Shriners.

The building was declared a historic Chicago landmark in 2001. After renovations, which included replacing the original domes, the Bloomingdale’s home store opened there in 2003.

According to the Medinah Shriners website, they, aka Shriners or Shrine Masons, belong to the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine for North America (A.A.O.N.M.S.). They’re only tied to an Arabic theme through the imagination of its founders, Billy Florence, an actor, and Walter Fleming, a physician. Florence attended a party in Marseilles hosted by an Arabian diplomat. At the end of the party, the guests became members of a secret society. Florence returned to the States inspired by his Marseilles experience and worked with Fleming to create an exotic backdrop for the fraternity. They designed elaborate rituals, salutations, emblems, and costumes, including the Shriners’ distinguishing red Fez hat.

When the building opened, it housed the fraternity. They gathered in a red velvet audotrorium now filled with escaltors, $1,000 sheets, and a cool sound system designed under the constraints the historic status placed on renovations: no speakers mounted on the dome and floating floors.

The Shriners used to hold parades for children regardless of religion. They still work today towards child welfare and health issues.

The building is obviously Moroccan-inspried. I love the way the eight-point star is used in the stain glass windows like a head of a body.

My mother in law is a helpful person, which is to say that she isn’t very good with people. She full of information on the right way of doing things; the right way to eat, the right way to clean, the right way to pray. She is there to remind you to turn off the light, air the bed linens, and say “Bismillah” before eating and “Hamdullah” after burping. Her knowledge of Islamic practices and Moroccan superstitions is vast, which is to say that she doesn’t know or care much about what people want to hear. She is the harbinger of “hashuma.”

Hashuma in Morocco means “shame.” Shame, it seems to me, can come from saying or doing almost anything; whistling inside the house, sitting with the sole of your foot pointed at someone, throwing away left-over food instead of laying it out in the garden for cats or ants. There is an endless supply of hashuma, which makes me thank God that I am an American and can’t be expected to understand it all. But, now that I am a mother, it seems hashuma has become more of my responsibility. My mother-in-law tells me “Your daughter rolls her eyes. Her eyes can get stuck and she will be cross-eyed from doing that. Perhaps you should take her to a doctor.” She doesn’t seem to know that the lessons she learned in childhood were lies used to coerce behavior. Neither does her mother seem to know, for she tells me excitedly that my daughter is blinking again.

“They used to tell us monsters would get us if we walked too far ahead. So, we’d follow closely, about to piss our pants” a Moroccan friend confesses. My father-in-law tells my girl “Don’t spit, or spiders may crawl into your mouth. I’m horrified by the way he tries to help me deal with her problematic behavior. Let’s not terrify the child. But, I must admit, it can be a very empowering to know/nurture your child’s fears and practice your ability to turn on/off. Not my style of parenting *at all* but a style many Moroccan parents identify, nurture, and manipulate.

My mother-in-law lives in a self-imposed state of isolation. Her mother, my grandmother-in-law, is much more extroverted, having raised three children with the help of a network of extended family/friends. One day, my grandmother-in-law asks me (somehow her and I always communicate despite a lack of common language), if I will take her back to her apartment. “Sarah, this house is making me crazy! I need to be back home. I need to see people walking around; at cafes; in the streets. I need to live!” She is speaking in Arabic. I agree to drive her back to her apartment, but want to check with my mother-in-law before taking her own mother off somewhere else. What if I don’t understand correctly (although I know I did)? I wait for her to wake up (this is afternoon, she woke early to pray and break fast). When I say I am going to take her mother home, she replies “I am so sorry Sarah. This isn’t your problem” and she keeps repeating the words “this isn’t your problem” in a way that makes me feel very uncomfortable. She is embarrassed that her husband isn’t on hand to do the driving. I understand her feelings about her husband’s behavior. I don’t understand her offense at my ability to help her.

My mother-in-law grew up in Algeria. Her Dad died when she was young was raised in the home of her maternal uncle. Her cousins became like sisters to her. He was wealthy, but lost everything trying to leave Algeria during the civil war. He was going to relocate the family to Oujda, on the Morocco side of the border. He sold all the family possessions in preparation. My mother-in-law left earlier than the rest of the family since her mother was already in Morocco. The night the rest of the family tried the crossing, they were stopped by a false police check-point and robbed. He died destitute, unable to reach the other half of his family; unable for them to reach back to him. My mother-in-law cried when remembering she couldn’t attend his funeral.

Why did I think I could live with her for two months? One, because I lived with her for nearly two years at the beginning of my marriage. I did my best to stay out of her way, in the basement, out of the kitchen. I respected that she had her own way of doing things, even if that way involved leaving sponges used for dishes soaking in dirty tepid water; leaving leftover food outside of the fridge for a day or two; leaving milk and black seeds in dishes by the sink as offerings to jinns. I learned not to question her by my sister-in-law’s example. Sister once threw away an old sponge and brought extra silverware to the house when my mother-in-law was on travel. There was a dramatic backlash for that overstepping of feminine boundaries, sponges, silverware, and all that could imply. I learned from that and thought I knew how to keep the peace with her.

But this time was different. This time I was in her house without my husband. This time I took up two rooms in her house, one for my petulant child and one for me. I tried to stay out of her way. I tried to obey rules about not opening the door for anyone, not answering the phone, not turning on and off the lights, not playing with the garden hose, not doing a number of things that came natural to a woman of 33 and, much more importantly, natural to a three-year-old girl. “The gardener can use the hose, but not me, right? Mima doesn’t yell at him, but she yells at me if I do it, right?” my daughter was sincere in trying to understand the rules, but there was no lesson for her. The expectations didn’t make sense. The demands conflicted. During our visit, my mother-in-law slept in the basement; my daughter and I had taken over her space. Her husband refused to sleep in the same room for her because of her snoring. But I suspect his refusal also had to do with her tendency to watch religious television and wake up at odd hours to pray or break fast. On TV, the men who all wore white clothing and headdresses that contrasted with long dark beards, appeared in slow motion, their mouths half smiling and oddly gapping as they slowly spoke silently repeated words. Orchestrated music played as the credits rolled. I felt I knew what they were saying, but I didn’t want to know. I wanted to keep the peace.

I thought I could stay with her because I loved and respected her. I always defended her. When my sister-in-laws complained about food poisoning at her house because of her unsanitary cleaning practices, I acknowledged that I had food poisoning from eating her food before too. But, what can you expect? She is an old woman. Those are the ways she understands. She has her own rituals. She makes an effort based on her understanding. When my brother-in-laws complained about her inability to throw anything away, about how she hordes useless things, like empty margarine containers and lightly used paper towels, I said she must find use in those things if she keeps them and she keeps them in her own house.

Had she changed since the early days of my marriage? Beyond wearing the hijab, had she herself really changed?

Even though she lived in self-imposed isolation remaining mainly inside her house, she kept her hair hidden. “Oh, the gardener’s here!” She said excitedly, “I must go cover my hair.” She fell-out with the friend who did the pilgrimage with her. I suspect the issue was style. “The Quran tells you to dress modestly. I had this shirt made for me” her friend had explained to me years before as she pointed out the breast pocket and tab details on her lose fitting button-up shirt. “You don’t have to wear a jellaba to dress modestly. You can still be stylish” My mother-in-law only wore jellabas outside the house. Her hijab was either black or white. No colorful scarf around her hair, but a fixed thing with lace detailing around the edges. No possibility of it being more than a head covering.

An intellectual man who liked talking about books, my father-in-law worked in Washington, DC, on topics of international development for nearly twenty years, a time during which he enjoyed dinners with colleagues and walks around the city smoking cigars. Now, back in Morocco, he had no friends with which he could debate intellectually. My mother in law would only talk from the perspective of religion, feeling, and personality. She tried to appear rational. She thought she was being witty. As my father-in-law discussed real estate prices in Morocco and the United States, she interrupted our conversation “What do you want, Sarah?!” I had heard this question, always presented as an accusation, several times in the past few weeks. I knew that I could not answer it correctly. But I miscalculated the response and went with honest instead of correct/proper, a bad habit that has plagued me all my life and caused much suffering for me and those around me. I should have said something like “I don’t want anything. I am happy here with you.” or “May God help me to know that.” or “I have everything I want already. Hamdullah.” But instead I said with deadly honestly “I don’t want to talk about what I want.”

Still, I was shocked to find her angry and pointing at me “You are the problem. You!” she screamed red faced with her finger assaulting the air between us as she jabbed it towards me. I had laundry in both the wash and the dryer. My child was watching TV upstairs and I came down to put olives in the fridge. I packed our bags helter-skelter and went to a friend’s house, which is where I sat wondering how I will pay for this…how I will pay for honesty this time.

“Why did you tell your husband that I didn’t want you here!” She yelled.
“Because you did.”
“I never said that! How can you say that to my son…MY son!” she yelled and turned her assaulting finger toward herself.
“You’re a liar.” Why back down now? “You said it to me in the kitchen, by the sink. And if you say you didn’t, then you are a liar.” I was calm.
“When?”
“I don’t remember exactly. I don’t know if it was a Monday or Tuesday; since I’ve been here. I was talking to you about the girl, and you said ‘You know, this is a real problem for me. I don’t feel comfortable in my own house.’ You said it to me in English.”

My daughter had begun to scream when she saw her grandmother coming, no doubt because she didn’t want to eat the hashuma that was about to be dished out.

“You are the problem! You! You have problem with everybody. Why are you here and not Fatima? I have a problem with YOU! Not your daughter. Just YOU! YOU are the problem!”
“OK. I need my bags.”

And so, I packed them – all four oversized suitcases, all the toys, the wet laundry, all. And I packed my girl into the car I borrowed from my father-in-law. I smashed my sunglasses in the trunk door trying to get it to shut. I can’t believe this is happening. So against the rules. He helps me load the car sanely.

“Why are you going?” he asks dumbly.
“For the same reason you disappear for days at a time.” I replied

I would hear him start his car in the morning and then no one would see or hear from him for a few days later. When confronted with this behavior, he said nothing. His facial expressions had grown hard to read. He always looked slightly numb. Now and since I had arrived.

Car loaded, girl clipped in place, I found my way to alternate accommodations for the second time in four days.

We arrived at 11pm. Reda met us downstairs and walk along side our car as we navigated to the guarded parking lot. It was once we stopped that he realized we carried with us four full suitcases, one carry-on bag, two baskets – one of which was filled with plush toys, the other with beach toys – a back pack, a camera bag, and a tote bag. Of course, no one could expect him to know the inventory in the detail described. I had packed in a hurried and confused state of mind. I couldn’t find my daughter’s shoes. I didn’t know where I put her pull-ups. She peed on their couch a few weeks before, so I was particularly anxious about this last point. But, as any observer could have done, he noticed the chaos. “Wow, you packed everything!”

We went upstairs, figured out the shoes and pull-up situation with another escorted run to the car. We, my daughter and I, settled upstairs and were watching our laundry dry in the front-load machine. We rested on the couch that had been moved to the terrace in anticipation of coming guests. Fatimazohra had prepped the bed for us with only a few moments notice. Mr. Reda, as my daughter calls him, came to check on us. “Don’t leave your clothes too long, they are already close to dry.” His remark made me wince with reminder of my mother-in-law. My daughter chatted lightly with him, which put me at a welcome ease. She was wearing only a pull-up and t-shirt. I wondered when someone would ask me why she had no pants on. No one did. She had nestled under a soft blanket and murmured there-year-old thoughts . He paused to survey the situation. “Wait, you need the right light. This light is too bright.” He walked away and returned with a leather and wrought-iron lamp shade decorated with henna and blue dye. He put it over an exposed light bulb that had been shining in our eyes.

“Why did you do that Mr. Reada?”
“Because the light was shining in your eyes. It’s better this way.”
“Yeah its better.”

He reassessed the situation.

“Wait. I made a mistake. I put it on wrong. Sorry. Let me fix it. There. That’s better.”
“Why did you do it wrong?”
“I made a mistake.”
“Why did you make a mistake?”
“Because I did put it on here wrong. It should go this way.”
“Yeah, Mr. Reda, you did it wrong! You did it wrong, Mr. Reda.”
“Yeah, I did.”
“Well, that’s OK, Mr. Reda. That’s OK.”

This gesture, Mr. Reda, perfecting the lighting for a few lost birds, meant worlds to me. And what a beautiful lesson for a 33/3 year-old girl to learn: it’s OK to make mistakes.

People smile at me as I walk with my daughter through the medina, my thumb and index finger wrapped around her billowy wrist. These standing witnesses seem like the collective soul of the world, yawning, like a baby awakened with a gentle rub on the back. When my daughter and I are together playful and chatty, we become a catalyst that causes a deep, dear memory to show itself as a smile on the face of strangers. This floating memory is so primal that it cannot enter the conscious mind as a coherent thought. Instead, it enters the semi-toothless mouth of a fruit seller who, in broken English, asks my daughter if she wants some melon. His words are difficult to understand. She appears confused when I tell her what he’s offering. I think she is more suprised that I understand him than she is put-off by him. His eyes shine upon her in search of the smile that decorates his face; a reflection of youth.

In the parking garage below the grocery store Aswak Aslam, I wander the lot with a cart full of bags and my daughter sitting in the fold-out shopping cart seat. A man wearing an orange vest showing him to be a parking attendant of sorts speaks to me something I don’t understand. He knows where my car is, but I doubt it. He takes the cart to push it in the right direction. I follow closely. He finds the truck where I left it. He talks in words I don’t understand as he unloads the bags from the cart and lifts my daughter from the seat. We both recoil at his familiarity and she grabs my legs once her feet hit the ground. Perhaps she is perceived as a sort of cargo and he is being chivalrous towards me, but I don’t think so. At Pizza Hut, the waitress kissed my daughter’s cheek as she greeted our table. A security guard in customs kissed her head, and a man in a café kissed his fingers and put them to the crown of her head as he walked past our table. She is something new here, something different than a toddler in America. She is a memory and a promise of life’s continued flow.

Moroccans love children: a love like warm sand at dusk. It is a love for the temporary nature of youth. In it is an awareness of youth as a precious gift that we all once had and that we all must eventually give away. But there is no glorification of youth. There is no equivalent to an American pop culture icon or the corresponding obsession with youthful sexuality. Beyond the radiant smile on the face of strangers, the kisses and candies, lies all the pain of an ordinary adulthood.

At Magic Park, an amusement park in Sale, I hold my daughter’s hand, anxiously trying to keep her from sitting on the dirty pavement while we wait impatiently in line to ride the Dragon Adventure. Children turn back and forth, calling to each other. Their smiles reveal rotting teeth; one’s happy eye is made heavy by a cyst. They push their way forcefully to the front of the line. I do not smile at them. Poverty has made them old by ten.

Leaving the park, our car is stopped by a traffic light. Music plays on the car radio. I encourage her to dance by bobbing my head and wiggling my elbows. She reluctantly complies. The men in the next truck smile widely at her and honk their horn and wave when the light turns green.

I found a park near my in-laws house in Hay Riad, an upper-middle class section surrounded by villas. It is a small structure holding two slides. It is secured in a pile of dirt that hides pieces of glass, used batteries, rusty bottle caps, and an ant colony. The park is frequented families that don’t look as if they live in the neighborhood; the adults are too comfortable sitting in the grass and the girls too happy playing simple games: making a candy wrapper jump on the cement by thumping their hand.

Each slide has a crack in it and the metal work that holds it has become rusty and jagged. I wonder, if I lived here, what part of the park I would work to fix first, or if I would instead build a private playground behind villa walls. A girl stands on the top of the slide, she stands out to an observer because she is older than the others and she wears a clean white party dress decorated with a large print of red flowers. She has taken her hair ribbon out and watches it blow in the wind. Her eyes have a melancholy look.

I don’t have the words to talk to her. I want to ask her what it is that she sees so far away. Somehow, it seems like a private moment for her. She is alone among us. I think of home. Perhaps there is still a reason to build your house in the fashion of a riad with the windows facing inward. More than the privacy it provides women, but for the privacy of family and the sanctuary of a child.

Can you see her?

There was a group of Americans at the tapas reastaurant where we I ate with two girl friends on a Saturday night. I had grown accustomed to not hearing my native language around me and gravitated towards their words. I knew they must be part of an organized group, perhaps a conference or fellowship of some sort. On my way back from the bathroom and after a second bottle of wine, I stopped by their table to ask. “Cultural solutions” they explained “volunteer work, education, outreach, that sort of thing.” I was homesick. One girl was clearly from the south “I want to marry a Moroccan” she explained with tales about some gardener. She was the most obviously drunk of a group that had shrunk down to about five.

Another girl was more level-headed, and another, who is the one I would like to imagine as myself: a sober-minded late-nighter, beautiful, tattooed, and intelligent. I kissed her head at some point for some observation, some remark I took as a sign of her intelligence and consequent loneliness. [This gesture (kissing someone on their head) is more normal in Morocco than America.]

One man in the group was Canadian “bring some hot girls with you next time.” I told him he didn’t want Moroccan women because they were too smart. When he quoted me back, I recanted: “Moroccan women are too complicated, I mean. American women are more accommodating than Moroccan women. You are better off with an American.” Perhaps he is destined to hook-up with the drunk Southerner in the group, who he made eye contact with as he repeated back my insult to her intelligence (I can’t help it. The passionate Moroccan gardener? Give me a break.). His trying to hurt her only confirms my point.

The other male, who looked Indian, told me he was from NJ when I asked. “What are you doing here?”
“Wasting time.”
“Don’t let him fool you” the Canadian chimed in “he’s a doctor.”
They said they would be in the same spot almost nightly for the next week or so. I told them my email address and said I would be back to see them, which I won’t.

I drive a home – a place we rented by the beach. I kept my eye on the KMs per hour and pulled haphazardly half way into the driveway, tired of myself and all the things I have to say.

The garden smelled like jasmine. I look for the plant of the smell, but I only find ivy. I’ve heard the smell is jasmine, but I have no reference in my American life, so to me the smell is nighttime in Morocco.

The stars are out…not desert stars…not DC stars either. Some compromise. I hear the ocean beating against the rocky coast of Harhoura. How is it that the rocks have remained?

In the day, it seems the horizon, the ocean, is above my head, that it will overtake me…overtake us all and the simple plastic furniture on the terraces of homes along the waterfront. I watch the waves when they seem higher than the rocks. But they break before them. At night, it must be high tide, when the pools form, cesspools as my husband calls them, where children play, guarded by cloaked women, where men fish.

The other night, I saw a man, fifty-ish, riding home on a motorbike, balancing a ridiculously long blue fishing pool between his legs. It seemed it should overtake him. He seemed content. “Moroccans love fishing” as if the love of fishing alone would protect him. These simple pleasures are why I love Morocco.

When I read articles about Fes being a car-free city, I reflect on my experience in Fes last summer. I stayed at the wonderful Riad 20 Jasmines. Located only a short walk from Batha Place, I quickly learned how to navigate my way back to the taxi stand so I could catch a ride to the modern part of town and attend the Moroccan Business Forum conference.

The sounds at night were a surprise to me. Dogs, people – those sounds I had expected. But the diesel sounds of motorized vehicles caught me by surprise. From the tiny, barred windows of my room I couldn’t look down and see what was going on in the medina alleyway below. But more than once I saw motorcycles being driven somewhat recklessly though the pedestrian and animal filled walkways. I can’t say I recall seeing anyone riding a bicycle.

The medina of Fes is a car-free city because it is an ancient place inconsiderate of cars. The truth is people use cars whenever they can. If you create environments where the car is inconvenient you can change behavior.

My own suburban town in the States was modeled on the car. It is basically a six-lane strip of road that widened over the years. Even when I want to walk to the store, the sidewalks and traffic deter me. What would my city be like if it were more of a city?

In Batha Place, I scanned the taxis to decide which one to hire. In one car the driver is smoking with the windows rolled-up. I chose another. As we start driving, the driver lights a cigarette. I shrug and light my own. “C’est interdit!” he tells me and laughs. It is a phrase overused. Everything and nothing is interdit (forbidden) in Morocco. I can still clearly picture the smiling gap-toothed cab driver nodding and laughing in the review mirror.

I first listened to Darga as we drove to Chefchaouen. The song “El-Khattabi” played on the stereo while one of El-Khattabi’s grandsons’ drove the car. The song could have had an arrogant feeling in this context (Do you know who my grandfather was?!). However, the music was so good (reminding me the ska and reggae music I listened to as a teenager growing up in suburban Maryland), the scenery of the Rif mountains beautiful, the attitude of our guest so genuine, that the song inspired feelings that were exotic, removed, and oddly familiar. I could imagine El-Khattabi inspiring his tribe to stand strong as they navigated the Rif Mountains, the scene unfolding to the soundtrack of my adolescence.

When we got to Chefchaouen, I “bought” a copy of the Darga CD Stop Baraka from a music store near the Plaza al-Hamam. While I waited for my copy of the CD to burn, I watched the butcher in the next stall feed stray cats chicken heads, feet, and other miscellaneous pieces. He opened the small door to his stall so that the littlest of them could come inside and eat in safety. This gesture of generosity somehow became embedded in the music.

As a teenager going the tough task of growing up, I locked myself in my room and listened to the wisdom of Bob Marley. As a young adult, I reached out to Morocco, the country of my future husband. And as a woman and mother, I seek ways to consolidate the best of American and Moroccan culture for my daughter. I’ve found Moroccan music and art carry the shared messages of our cultures and the cultures beyond us.

In Rabat, I mingled with trendy youth, who listened to the classic Steel Pulse album True Democracy. I danced to Ziggy Marley at the Mawazine festival. I listened to things both strange and familiar and the audience listened with me; families, children, street kids, grandfathers, vendors, and police.

Back in the States, I loaded the Darga album onto my ipod and began to listen to the tracks in more detail. Track eight became my favorite. I had my husband translate the words for me. It is a song about the problem of racism. The last minute of so of the track includes inspiring words of Martin Luther King, Jr (Darga MP3 Clip). On this Martin Luther King, Jr. Day (January 19), one day before the inauguration of President Obama, I will reflect on how much we share across our cultures. I will dream and dance.

Magharebia.com wrote an article on Morocco’s efforts to promote rural tourism. The article fails to mention USAID-funded efforts to identify and establish Moroccan rural tourism projects. The report which was completed by Chemonics for USAID has some lovely photos.

I’ve become a fan of contemporary Moroccan artists such as Mohamed Hamidi, born in Casablanca in 1941. You can see a few more of his paintings online at the Shashoua Gallery although my favorites aren’t featured there. A friend of mine had a book and the book had pictures of the paintings and the paintings aren’t online. Perhaps I will time to scan those pictures so I can share my favorites with you. I found a reading list online, but with the holidays coming I don’t think I will find the time or budget to buy or read any books. In the meantime, I will hunt for inspiration at the Gallery of Marseille and Art-Maroc.co.ma and whatever else I can find online.

I pull up to the Agdal train station and the attendant tells me the lot is full. I wait in the car for another car to leave. I pull into a too-small space. A passerby motions which way I should go as I drive back-and-forth to nudge into the opening. I ignore him. Frustrated.

Leaving the car, I dodge through the parked cars holding my daughter’s sweating hand. We step over trash and overgrown grass. The ammonia smell of urine burns my nose. I grip her hand tighter, afraid she may slip lose. We sit in a café.

What time did he say he was coming?

We pick a table outside to avoid the smoke. Something smells putrid. We order French fries and soda and wait. After eating, there is nothing left but the putrid smell. We wind our way back through the parking lot and wait in the car. Sweating. Smelling. The beggars surround us again. The same ones we refused earlier. An African approaches us and says “I am a student here.” I reply “And I am a woman waiting at a train station.” He says nothing more.

We walk on, again, over the long grass that crowds a urine soaked tree in the over-crowded lot. Bottles. Trash. I put my small girl in the back seat. She is sweaty and quiet. I hand her water and search for something on the radio. A boy, perhaps 12 years old, approaches. I tell him to go away. He walks on without argument.

What time did he say he would be arriving?

The boy stands not far off from us. He is wearing a sweater over a long shirt and long pants. He clothes are too big for his frame. I cannot see how thin he is. His face is smeared with dirt and his clothes are made of dust. Sweating. His eyes meet mine. Frustrated, I don’t look away. Moments pass. Hours pass. We are still looking at each other. What does he see? Certainly my eyes, but the context is not here. Not this sweating, stinking, train station parking lot. Not the roving packs of African students. Not this need that is overwhelming me. A light smile floats onto his face. I imagine pink circles and fading rainbows surround me by the way he looks at me. He approaches the car with the same silly out-of-place smile on his face. He smiles. I keep my face the same. More hours pass. “Seer.” I say (means, “Go” or “Get!”)
“Seer?” He repeats?
“Seer.” With a nudge of his shoulders he moves on. I notice he pulls a coke bottle from the front of his trousers, removes the cap, takes a sniff, and returns it to its place. I realize, I could have had him. Had his life. Thrown him into the car and done whatever I wanted with or to him. His life is nothing. In this sweating, stinking, parking lot, I am outnumbered by need. He, however, is beyond it. Unaffected.

This haunts me.

I am reading “For Bread Alone
” by Mohammad Chourkri. When I read the back cover, I was worried it would make me too depressed. From the back cover:

“Driven by famine from their home in the Rif, Mohamed’s family walks to Tangier in search of a better life. But things are no better there. Eight of Mohamed’s siblings die of malnutrition and neglect, and one is killed by his father in a fit of rage.”

I am not depressed. I am something yet unnamed. I see the eyes of the boy in the Agdal train station parking lot.